Of Terror and Torture

Published: February 13, 2005

To the Editor:

Andrew Sullivan's powerful review of two books on torture (Jan. 23) makes clear the extent of responsibility for violations of the Geneva Convention and basic human rights. His admission that those like himself who supported the war for humanitarian reasons must share some of the blame is courageous. In this context it is worth remembering Randolph Bourne's devastating reply to intellectuals who, won over by Woodrow Wilson's idealistic rhetoric, supported American entry into World War I. In the illusory hope of promoting their own ''liberal purposes,'' Bourne wrote, intellectuals had allied themselves with ''the least democratic forces in American life.'' Those forces, not the humanitarian intellectuals, he predicted, would determine the war's conduct and consequences. Bourne's warning was vindicated when the Wilson administration unleashed the greatest assault on civil liberties in American history. The lesson -- that the character of those who hold power determines how a war is conducted -- remains valid today.